2021-02-27]]> URL]]> 2021-01-18]]> 2021-01-07]]>
Crosslegged, the child has short curly hair and is dressed simply in an all-white short sleeve shirt and shorts. On the ground near the child's right hand are multiple crayons, which the child has used to draw flowers and a heart that reads "BLM" for Black Lives Matter. The crayons and the child's drawings offer the only pop of color in the image. The child extends their left hand up, offering to the police officer a hand drawn yellow flower with a simple green stem.]]>
2020-06-13]]>

"To you black was the color of priests and undertakers and orphans. But everything is changing. Whatever is gentle and kind and good and tender will be black. Milk will be black, sugar, rice, the sky, doves, hope, will be black. SO will the opera to which we shall go, blacks that we are, in black Rolls Royces to hail blacks kings, to hear brass bands beneath chandeliers of blacks crystal..." - Jean Genet, '58

The plywood mural depicts figures from the play "Les Nègres" ("The Blacks"), a work by playwright Jean Genet that was published in 1958 and performed for the first time in 1959. The play is reliant upon the structure of a production within the production itself, exploring Black identity while exposing racial prejudice and stereotypes by shocking and implicating the audience. ]]>
2020-07-07]]> Image: @Bringing_Back_Bowery on Instagram]]>

The leftmost figures are a man wearing only trousers, a significantly shorter cherub carrying a harp amidst bubbles,, and a woman who lifts her skirt as if she was mid-dance. The rightmost figure is a woman, mouth agape as if singing while her left hand gestures and right hand grasps at her skirt.

The plywood mural depicts figures from the play "Les Nègres" ("The Blacks"), a work by playwright Jean Genet that was published in 1958 and performed for the first time in 1959. The play is reliant upon the structure of a production within the production itself, exploring Black identity while exposing racial prejudice and stereotypes by shocking and implicating the audience.

Within a note included as preface to the play, Genet describes his concerns with the conditions in which the play would most likely be performed, stating: "This play, written, I repeat, by a white man, is intended for a white audience, but if, which is unlikely, it is ever performed before a black audience, then a white person, male or female, should be invited every evening. The organizer of the show should welcome him formally, dress him in ceremonial costume and lead him to his seat, preferably in the first row of the orchestra. The actors will play for him. A spotlight should be focused upon this symbolic white throughout the performance. But what if no white person accepted? Then let white masks be distributed to the black spectators as they enter the theater. And if the blacks refuse the masks, then let a dummy be used."]]>
2020-07-17]]> Image: @Bringing_Back_Bowery on Instagram]]>

Amiri Baraka was a playwright, novelist and poet that actively worked to bring the Black experience in America to life. Baraka's writings explored the anger of the Black community within the United States at the beginning of the Black Civil Rights Movement, using his writings as a weapon against racism. A widely polarizing figure, through his near fifty year career Baraka continued to be regarded as one of the most respected and widely published Black authors.

A small strip pulled off of the painting removes the paint to reveal the plywood underneath, on which small text reads: "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. - MLK". ]]>
2020-06-18]]> Image: @Bringing_Back_Bowery on Instagram]]>
"Community Demands:
1. Stop all encampment evictions
2. Convert vacant buildings into housing
3. Make housing free
4. End the separation of families
5. Abolish the police
6. Mayor Jacob Frey resign"

This sign reveals the way that social inequities are exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic and wrapped together with racial justice issues brought to light in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd. ]]>
2020-10-26]]>